


Stopping By The Woods on a Snowy Evening

by shulamithbond



Series: Marvel Femships [2]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor (Movies), Thor - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Pre-Thor (2011), Attempts at Norse mythology references, Butch/Femme, Canon Divergence - Thor, F/F, Femslash, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Loki knows he's a Frost Giant, Past Child Abuse, Pre-Thor (2011)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-07
Updated: 2014-05-07
Packaged: 2018-01-23 21:11:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1579688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shulamithbond/pseuds/shulamithbond
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One night Loki gets lost in the Ironwood on Jotunheim and ends up finding Angrboda and Sigyn living there together. May eventually become more than a one-shot. Named after the Frost poem because it put me in the frame of mind to write this.</p><p>Written for the-trickster-and-the-optimist (wwretchedwwaltzing) while they're on hiatus; they introduced me to this ship, too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stopping By The Woods on a Snowy Evening

          Loki shivered and pulled his cloak tighter about his shoulders. Shouldn’t being a Frost Giant mean it was impossible for him to get chilled?

         Night had fallen on the Ironwood; he had stayed there too long, gathering supplies for his seidr, and forgotten the season: the days, never long on Jotunheim, were especially short now, at the close of the old year. Reluctantly, Loki turned his boots back on the path he had come. On the one hand, he could practically see already the warm orange glow of the palace’s great hearth, nearly inhaling the smoky smell of crackling firewood and hot, fresh-cooked meat, and almost listening to his mother’s soft speech and warm smile as she supervised the tending of the fire and the setting out of the night’s meal. On the other, the thought of the loud voices raised in bawdy song, the drunkenness, the chaos within the hall that would reverberate from its vaulted ceiling, gave Loki a pre-emptive headache. Despite the cold, he almost considered spending the night in the wood as it slowly filled up with snow, his only company the slate-colored tree trunks and the silent flurries, falling around him in the deep blue air.

          Mind miles away and head full of its usual swirl of insubstantial theories, thoughts, memories, and questions, it should have been no surprise he would become lost in the dark wood, and Loki had just about resigned himself without much disappointment to digging out a little shelter in some snow piled between a small grove of trees, perhaps conjuring up a small fire, and settling in for the night as he and Thor had learned to do as boys, when he realized he heard footsteps in the snow behind him. He walked faster, but did not seem to be able to shake the sound of cracking snow and the sensation of being followed. He began to prepare himself to fight.

          “Are you lost, friend?” Loki turned toward the voice, which sounded female. A fur-wrapped figure was following him; she was small, too small to be a Frost Giant.

         “Yes,” he admitted cautiously. “Have I trespassed on your land?”

         “Of course not. The Ironwood belongs to no one but itself.” She laughed softly at the idea; she had a lovely laugh, light and almost like falling ice crystals. “But if you are lost, would you wish to spend the night with my mate and I, as our guest?” She paused at his attire. “You need not be afraid in our home because you come from Asgard. I am Vanir myself.”

         It was not improbable that she was an illusion worn by some spirit or entity of the forest that fed by luring in those who were lost. But Loki’s curiosity burned within him, and so he nodded. “I thank you for your kind offer, and I gladly accept.”

         She smiled at him. “Follow me.”

 

         If this was an illusion, it held strong as the woman led Loki through the snow toward what appeared to be her home, a sort of sunken cabin half-hidden under the enormous roots of a slowly falling tree. Inside it was surprisingly spacious and high-ceilinged, dug into the ground beneath the tree and built downward rather than up. The large, uppermost main room, into which the woman led Loki, taking his wet cloak and settling him on a chair draped with rugs and pelts, was dimly lit but well-warmed by a low fire, orange with tints of purple at the edge of its flames; a magical fire, Loki realized. Looking around at the earthen walls and the beams of the ceiling, he could see other evidence of the practice of sorcery: tools of seidr, and ingredients drying or contained in baskets and jars.

          “Thank you,” Loki told her, accepting the simple clay mug of some hot beverage that she handed him. He sniffed it gingerly, could not detect any hints of common draught or poison ingredients, and drank experimentally. It tasted something like cider.

          “Not at all,” she reassured him, spreading a pelt across his knees and stripping off her own wrappings. Loki started; she was, as she had said, a young Vanir woman, and uncommonly pretty. She was perhaps more petite than most, and curvy of form, with long, faintly curly chestnut hair that caught even the room’s dim glow in golden highlights. With her coverings removed, it was even clearer from the way she carried herself that she was born of some noble house. “We brew it ourselves. In the autumn, this wood brings forth black-skinned apples that are known all over this realm. You can do nearly anything with them.”

         “Is your husband an enchanter of some sort?” Loki asked her conversationally as she bustled around the hearth, in preparation for said husband’s arrival, no doubt. The more he watched her, the more he couldn’t help but entertain a hope that the man would be late. Very late.

        She laughed again; the question was worth it just to hear that laugh once more. “Not exactly…not my _husband_ , no.” A mischievous look crossed her features as quickly as a breeze, so fast Loki wondered if it was there at all.

          She seemed familiar, and Loki racked his brain for where he knew her…oh yes. It had been years, of course, but…

          “Sigyn,” said his mouth aloud before he could silence himself. Of course, it was the maid Sigyn. Daughter of one of the minor Vanir lords, but she had been at court a few times, and Loki, though a boy himself, had seen her from a distance. Apparently, for a brief while, she had been a potential choice for his parents’ marriage plans, either for him or for Thor. They had decided against it; Loki did not know why.

         And then, mere days before her parents were set to announce her betrothal, or so court gossip ran…she had vanished. Foul play was suspected; kidnapping, perhaps. Her family had awaited some list of demands, but none had ever come. Eventually, they had mourned her as dead.

         So this was what had become of her. Some sorcerer or monster had stolen her and kept her here by some means of enchantment. Even as Loki began to wonder how he might free her, it did not escape him that his own identity must be kept hidden from both her and her captor; such a being could be no friend of Asgard’s, and would likely see Loki as competition or as yet another pawn to be controlled.

         Sigyn was now staring at him – not with the air of one confused or coming out of any spell, but like an animal in a trap. “What?”

          “You are the Lady Sigyn,” Loki insisted. “Of Vanaheim. Your parents, my lady – they think that” –

         “I know what they think,” she said quietly, the smile leaving her face. Her tone struck Loki silent.

         They both turned as the bolt of the heavy front door slid to. As Loki watched, cold dread beginning to filter into his stomach, the door was pushed open – slowly, against the snow that had piled outside it, and with what sounded like many oaths and curses hissed under the breath.

        To Loki’s mild horror, a Frost Giant entered the room – full-sized, unlike Loki, and wearing its true form. At first, from the dress and manner of the being, Loki thought it male, but after watching it and its body, he decided it was most likely female, though he still could not be certain. The Frost Giant(ess?) glared down at him accusatorily. “Who is _this?”_

         “A lost traveler in the wood,” Sigyn told her soothingly, coming forward to greet the other woman and standing before her, looking almost comically tiny by comparison. “Is that really how you greet me, after so long an absence?”

         The woman’s demeanor softened slightly, enough for her to sweep Sigyn up into her arms and – to Loki’s simultaneous interest and embarrassment – plant a long kiss on the Vanir’s lips as Sigyn hummed softly with pleasure and affection. Loki struggled not to stare. He looked down into his half-empty cup instead until they finished. “You’re a brute,” he heard Sigyn murmur to the woman.

         There was the sound of another kiss. “I missed you,” the Frost Giantess told her quietly.

         Loki left them that way for as long as he could, until he became too uncomfortable and couldn’t resist clearing his throat. The woman glared at him while Sigyn disentangled herself. “This is my wife, Angrboda,” she introduced him as she filled a mug full of something that looked like ice water for the woman. “She had to be absent for a few days, but I expected her tonight. She was called to Utgard to advise the king,” she added with obvious pride. “Darling, this is” – she paused, evidently realizing she had never asked Loki who he was. “I apologize for my rudeness, but who did you say you were?”

         Loki swallowed hard, but decided on the truth, against his better judgment. “I am Loki of Asgard.”

          He might as well have announced his intent to murder everyone in the house from the way both women were looking at him. Sigyn recovered first, although she once again reminded him of some wild creature caught in a trap. She peered into his half-full cup. “Would you like another, Prince? Excuse me, I’ll go…fetch more.” She disappeared down the steps into the depths of the house just a hair faster than was polite.

         Angrboda rounded on Loki with such wrath on her face that Loki actually feared for his immediate safety. “You are from the Aesir’s court. What do you know of Sigyn?”

         “She – it was given out that she was dead.” Loki risked a look up into her fierce red eyes and tried not to shrink back.

         “You believe I stole her away, don’t you? Bewitched her. Fine. Let them say that, enough people in Utgard owe me favors,” she snapped, not sounding completely convinced of the latter herself. “Let them think that. So much the better; they’ll only pity her and she’ll escape the scandal. Most of it. After all, it’s the only reason someone like _her_ would ever run off with someone like _me_ , isn’t that so? A _monster_.”

        The lurch in Loki’s stomach must have shown on his face. “What do _you_ care?” Angrboda hissed. “It’s what all your kind tell each other about us. Did you think we couldn’t _hear_ you?”

         “I don’t.” The words came out too softly. “I… _I_ do not say such things.”

         “Oh yes, of course you’re _not all like that_.” But somehow, she had caught a glimpse of it, seen through it in some way. Now, she raised a hand with what could almost have been hesitation and brushed his forehead with one long finger, light as a snowflake. Loki tried not to flinch back or register shame as he felt the enchantment falter over the spot she had touched.

        Angrboda was silent for a while. At last she said, “Well…that changes nothing. You could still bring your… _father_ and his troops here to kill me and take her back.”

        “Why did she leave?” Loki asked. It had not escaped his notice that Sigyn had not yet returned from whatever cellar she’d run down to. He suspected she was composing herself.

        Angrboda scowled further. She leaned toward him, and in a low voice, she explained, “When _those_ …when _her parents_ found out what she…that she _prefers_ _the_ _company_ _of women_ , they… _reacted badly_. And they would have forced her to marry against her will. They practically _sold_ her.” She sneered at the mere memory.

        As great as his fear was, Loki still felt something in him soften toward Sigyn – and, a bit, toward Angrboda by extension – and harden toward the girl’s parents. He could remember the fear and shame he had felt after the first night he’d spent with another man, and the terror once Thor and his mother found out…and the dread of what might happen when the news reached the Allfather. In the end, his mother had managed to break the news and smooth things over well enough, but still he could remember the nauseating anxiety of that night, the longest of his life.

         _If I am ever king – and if I survive this night – I will show the parents of Sigyn what the might of Asgard truly means._

         “I will not speak of what I’ve seen,” he said aloud. “I would not see Sigyn returned to such a home.”

         Angrboda sat back, still glowering, but now Loki could see her fear – and he realized how much of it was for Sigyn’s sake. “I would that I could believe you, Prince.”

         “I play tricks,” Loki objected. “I am not cruel.”

         For an instant, she let the mask fall completely, and Loki could see the desperate wish to accept his word and all that it promised. “I must go and see to my wife,” she said at last, standing and ducking down the staircase Sigyn had descended.

 

        When Angrboda finally reemerged, she had Sigyn with her. Sigyn tried to smile at Loki, and murmured something about forgetting the tankard of cider she had gone down to get in the first place. “Angrboda told me what you said,” she explained as cheerfully as she could – still jumpy, Loki could tell. “You must forgive her, my Prince. She can become…protective. We are both very grateful.”

        “I understand,” Loki tried to reassure her, even as he knew it would do no good. “And it is I who have to be grateful to you, for your hospitality.” _Especially since you had so much to lose_.

         Sigyn calmed down enough to sit Loki and Angrboda down at the table and begin serving the meal; a hearty stew with bread on the side. The only sound was that of the wind in the trees and around the house. Loki wondered if he should simply put up with the silence until morning, but he decided to say something. “His name was Tyr.”

          Both women looked over at him. Loki elaborated. “The first man I was ever with. His name was Tyr.” He cleared his throat. “There have been women, too. And…others. But I remember the first time it happened with a man. It was…terrifying, afterward. I did not know what would happen.”

          “I was not certain of my feelings until I met Angrboda,” Sigyn spoke up. “There were a few friends, but…I knew they did not feel the same way. And it was so difficult even to put words to the feeling.” She shook her head. “When I learned of my parents’ plans, I knew I had to leave.”

         “We met when I came to the court as part of Farbauti’s retinue, as her healer, soon after I became a full rune-wielder,” Angrboda explained. A rare smile broke across her face. “I did everything I could to come to court again after that, just in case she had come, as well.” Sigyn ducked her head modestly, blushing. “I had never found anyone but Jotnar and Jarnvidir attractive until I met her. She was the loveliest woman I had ever seen.”

         Sigyn laughed. “How like a rune-wielder, to think you can charm me with pretty words.”

        “Truly, I thought a star had fallen from the sky.” Angrboda’s laughter joined Sigyn’s. It was a deep and full sound. Loki couldn’t contain his own chuckle as he felt the tension between them deflate. He settled into the comfort of the room and allowed the two women to catch each other up on their news over his head, letting the chill leave his body as he listened to the distant wind.


End file.
